Alan B,

I quite agree, as I have written before, in my plan I would demand the services that were originally public, be returned to their original status and owners; the Australian people.
In my version, I demand the govt TAKE these services back under the public wing, where they were, and belong.
In my version, I would not compensate the current owners, as they 'stole' them in the first place in collaboration with certain govt hierarchy and have been gouging us from the start, so they can go and get stuffed.
Let the compensation be the huge profits they ripped out of us while they controlled these entities.
The underhanded manner in which the govt's of the day went about 'giving' these entities away was disgraceful.
Typically, telling us stupid comments like 'we are paying too little for our power, so the price must go up'.
The price went up because the mates who were looking at buying the electricity generation, for example, wanted to gouge more profit out of us, and said they were not interested at the then rates of return, and told the govt to up the returns and bottom line, and they will reconsider.
And that's what they did.
Slowly they 'turned the heat up' on the price of electricity, until these scumbag pigs were appeased, and then and only then did they end up buying.
Well we've paid more than enough, these are public utilities and they should be back in the hands of the public.
If enough people annoy the sh!t out of as many politicians, you never know.
As far as I am concerned if someone looking to be elected committed his platform around re-acquiring the public assets so as to be under public control again, I would definitely vote for them.

There should be no disputing the fact that the statistics show that the annual average for the eight years ended 2016 is 38.88 percent (39 percent rounded) higher than the annual average for the nine years ended 2008.

The exercise should make the authors and others aware that the ABC mindset is such that the ABC would never acknowledge that it is biased,in cases where it undoubtedly is.

There is no longer any justification for the ABC to be taxpayer-funded. It should be abolished or privatised.

On the very same day – with the Greens to thank – and demonstrating their priorities

Animal sentience recognised under new ACT laws
* https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-26/act-animal-sentience-recognised/11550946
* https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6407314/act-passes-australia-first-animal-sentience-laws/
Human sentience irrelevant under new NSW laws
* https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-26/abortion-decriminalised-in-nsw-as-bill-passes-lower-house/11549436

Alan B: (26/9/19 12:56:06 pm) wrote of our island continent: "much of which is both permanently arid and below sea level, by up to 15 metres in places". This does not seem to me to be correct. The following map suggests that only the Lake Eyre region is below sea level:

https://www.ga.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0013/12640/GA11759.gif

I note that the lake as it is represented in that map seems to be in the shape of a rather bedraggled duck 'standing on its digs'... but that must be because I'm a loony leftie and all that sort of stuff.

I'd like to comment on the Howe/Le Mire article, but I probably won't get time to do so properly. My initial reactions were that their 39% (raw numbers) increase in late-term abortions since 2008 was credible/plausible - I still think that.

Yet at the same time, now having read the Fact Check analysis, I am inclined to accept the 'Wrong' prognosis. After all, it said that Howe-Le Mire used 'raw numbers' to arrive at that figure, and that the Fact Check analysis seemed to suggest that what Howe-Le Mire did not factor-in was the increase in population ... and (by implication?) that the 39% increase was calculated on a pre-1969 population percentage figure, while the ABC Fact Check reviewed it as a percentage figure based on late-term abortions - and a burgeoning population - following that 2008/2009 cutoff.

Raw numbers or then-and-now population percentages?

CORRECTION: Oops! Don't know what I was thinking when I typed in <pre-1969 population>. I'm sure I meant <pre-2009 population>!
MORAL: You only see your errors once you have made them...

Stopped heeding the Australian Bias Corporation years ago. Occasionally useful as a contra-indicator.